William Shatner couldn’t make it to Leonard Nimoy’s funeral in Los Angeles Sunday, because of a prior commitment to attend the Red Cross Ball in Florida.

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“I can’t make it back in time,” Shatner tweeted Saturday. “I feel really awful. Here I am doing charity work and one of my dearest friends is being buried.”

With his decision not to bail on the Ball eliciting criticism, Shatner took to Twitter Sunday to field questions from fans about Nimoy and their friendship both in real-life and reel-life, as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

The thread read less like fans gushing and more like a global shiva, a Jewish tradition where friends and family visit the bereaved after the funeral to recall good deeds and funny anecdotes from the deceased’s life, as a way to cope with the loss.

Nimoy—who died Friday at 83 of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—inspired an outpouring of love and sorrow from as far away as the International Space Station.